Heat Transfer Enhancement at Supercritical Pressures

Abstract

A Supercritical Water Reactor (SCWR) design has been proposed by AECL as part of Canada's commitment to the GEN IV program. In this design, the outlet coolant temperature would be 625 °C, which is much higher than the corresponding value for the CANDU® reactor and would result in a much higher thermal efficiency. For the same reason, it becomes very critical that the fuel sheath temperature of the SCWR would not exceed the estimated maximum of about 850 °C. Consequently, a central issue in the process of understanding and predicting the thermalhydraulic characteristics of the Canadian SCWR fuel bundles is the development of means to enhance heat transfer from fuel-element simulators and the avoidance of "deteriorated heat transfer"" under normal operating conditions as well as during different accident scenarios. These are the objectives of current work at the University of Ottawa.